As 2006 winds down, it will be remembered as the year when the extreme streetbike culture found its groove. This was the year that sick-looking custom sportbikes, insanely fast road rockets and mad-crazy stunters finally started getting the props-and the industry attention-they deserve. The last 12 months have seen the mainstream media in general and the biker world in particular step up and take notice of the style, the speed and the attitude that those of us here at Super Streetbike have been pumpin' up since our first issue way back in 2003, when fur-covered SRAD Gixxers were still considered the business. With that in mind, here are my anything-but-objective picks for the highlights (and lowlights) of this past sportbike season:
Best TV Commercial
Kawasaki's spot for its new ZX14 Ninja. The guy in the stealth black leathers and helmet (from Icon, no less!) goes so fast on his ZX14, he passes his own bad self on the way home. One ride on this eyeball-peeling beast of a bike shows that the folks at Kawasaki's ad department weren't exaggerating when they concepted this spot.
Best Half-Hour On TV
Superbikes, with Jason Britton and Rossi Moreale. SPEED TV's decision to give airtime to stunting legend and all-around cool dude Jason Britton and give true mainstream exposure to the extreme streetbike world every Tuesday evening is possibly the most significant thing to happen to this scene yet. The weekly series presents a side of sportbiking that most mainstream motorcycle enthusiasts would otherwise never see. Best of all, no more suffering through that interminable bore that was Greg's Garage...
Worst Waste Of DVD Space
Do we really need all the "Me-So-Porny" T&A action seen on so many stunt DVDs this past season? It may have been cool when New Jersey's Underground Riders placed a few scenes of p-poppin' gals in their vids, but full-on girl-girl action? Puh-leeze
It's About Time
Discovery Channel's Biker Build-Off usually features motorcycles that are about as rideable as a glass carousel pony, but last summer the show producers "discovered" two of our kinds, former roadracers Roland Sands and Jesse Rooke, and invited the pair to build and wheelie, burnout, race around and otherwise abuse for the camera a pair of sportbike-inspired one-off customs that fit right into the Super Streetbike world (one of which even ended up on our Oct. '06 cover). At this rate, Discovery Channel will discover four-cylinder engines and liquid cooling during the 23rd century.
Worst Fashion Trend
Seriously, what's with the black socks pulled up to the knee under long, black Bermuda-style shorts? This past summer at the Starboyz' Stunt Fest I swear that half the riders in competition were rocking this style, which we heard one onlooker describe as "manpris" (as opposed to the Capri pants favored by young ladies of a college age and also pretty-in-pink pro stunter Kane Freisen...). If y'all want to go out looking like castoffs from a German retiree cruise ship, well, go right ahead.
Best Fashion Trend
Led by the unstoppable safety gear steamroller that is Icon, motorcycle clothing manufacturers are finally realizing that street riders don't necessarily want to dress like roadracers every time they jump in the saddle. Big ups to the people who are designing livable, safe riding gear that doesn't make us walk like Fred Sanford when we're off the bike. Now, where's our armored hoodie?
Best Lesson From The Hova
Take a cue from rapper Jay-Z-retirement is way overrated. You listening, D-Aces, Jermaine Holt, Matt Gorka, Chauncey, Ryan Cramer, D-Mann, and all the rest of you one-wheel gangsters who have seemingly fallen from the face of the Earth?
Best Excuse To Buy A Radar Detector
Dig the Cannonball Bike Run (www.cannonballbikerun.com), a planned 2,500-mile race that will start in hell-on-earth L.A. and end in Las Vegas a week later, with more than 2,500 miles of high-speed mayhem in between. Legal? Hardly. Would we miss it? Not a chance.
Best Reason To Dust Off Your Library Card"Ragged Edge," the latest book by Stephen Davison, who spent years photographing from roadside ditches just inches from the action to create this mind-blowing study of real road racing. If you're not inspired by the sight of a racer losing a limb to a barbed-wire fence only to continue racing, lawdy help you.